# 3.10. Moving Bugzilla Between Machines

Sometimes it’s necessary to take a working installation of Bugzilla and move it to new hardware. This page explains how to do that, assuming that you have Bugzilla’s webserver and database on the same machine, and you are moving both of them.

You are advised to install the same version of Bugzilla on the new machine as the old machine - any upgrade you also need to do can then be done as a separate step. But if you do install a newer version, things should still work.

1. Shut down your Bugzilla by loading the front page, going to Administration | Parameters | General and putting some explanatory text into the shutdownhtml parameter.

2. Make a backup of the bugs database.

3. On your new machine, install Bugzilla using the instructions at Installation and Maintenance Guide. Look at the old machine if you need to know what values you used for configuring e.g. MySQL.

4. Copy the `data` directory and the `localconfig` file from the old Bugzilla installation to the new one.

5. If anything about your database configuration changed (location of the server, username, password, etc.) as part of the move, update the appropriate variables in `localconfig`.

6. If the new URL to your new Bugzilla installation is different from the old one, update the urlbase parameter in `data/params.json` using a text editor.

7. Copy the database backup file from your old server to the new one.

8. Create an empty `bugs` database on the new server. For MySQL, that would look like this:

   mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE DATABASE bugs DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8;"

9. Import your backup file into your new `bugs` database. Again, for MySQL:

   mysql -u root -p bugs < $BACKUP_FILE_NAME

   If you get an error about “packet too large” or “MySQL server has gone away”, you need to adjust the `max_allowed_packet` setting in your `my.cnf` file (usually `/etc/my.cnf`) file to match or exceed the value configured in the same file in your old version of MySQL.

   If there are any errors during this step, you have to work out what went wrong, and then drop the database, create it again using the step above, and run the import again.

10. Run `checksetup.pl` to make sure all is OK. (Unless you are using a newer version of Bugzilla on your new server, this should not make any changes.)

    ./checksetup.pl

11. Activate your new Bugzilla by loading the front page on the new server, going to Administration | Parameters | General and removing the text from the shutdownhtml parameter.

This documentation undoubtedly has bugs; if you find some, please file them here.